A principle is true no matter where you live; however, basing new communities on true principles will not, as many people fear, produce cookie cutter villages, towns and cities. A foundation based on principle allows for maximum creative expression, variety and diversity. As we incorporate these principles there are certain basics that all humans desire and need: food, water, safety, shelter, clothing, good health, a cohesive family unit and opportunities to grow through education, recreation, social intercourse, spiritual practice, and a sharing of talents and gifts.[3] True principles will recognize and support these basic needs.

The basic principles for this new model are stewardship, natural law, freedom, aesthetics, and social awareness. Following these five basic principles will fulfill the twelve identified human needs above. This new model contains two types of villages: ones that are built BY people for themselves and those created FOR people who for whatever reason lack the resources to do it for themselves alone.

Stewardship

The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy notes that “while in modern times there is a ‘hedonistic component’ to the definition of happiness, for the framers of the Declaration of Independence ‘happiness meant that feeling of self-worth and dignity you acquire by contributing to your community and to its civic life.’ In the context of the Declaration of Independence, happiness was about an individual’s contribution to society rather than pursuits of self-gratification.”[4]

The current U.S. attitude is that individual rights (including corporations treated as an individual) trump what is best for the collected whole (often seen as the Republican attitude). Additionally, legislating compassion/ecological concerns/fairness leads to more and more invasive laws and has not worked well (these issues being seen as the domain of the Democrats). This balance of individual rights and one’s responsibility to the greater whole must move to a higher level beyond legislation. Thankfully, due in large part to the millennials, a change in attitude is near the tipping point; most now realize that every person and nation is responsible to all the other people/nations and the generations that follow. We have a collective stewardship to the people and to the earth--nothing should be done to the land or air that would cause it to be uninhabitable or less desirable nor should economic burdens be passed on to future generations or one group benefit at the expense of another. All decisions are made with seven generations in mind and the good of the whole ecosystem (mother earth).

Natural Law

Natural law is above any government or organization. It is what Thomas Jefferson stated as “self-evident.” Joel Skousen, a Philosopher of Law and Constitutional Theory, explains it as “rights all persons can possess simultaneously without exercising compulsion upon another.”[5] There are four basic natural laws: life, liberty, property and self defense.

Self Defense English Law has long stated that “our home is our castle” but lesser known is the last half “and each man's home is his safest refuge.”[6] This concept was written into the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. Further law based on this idea is the right to defend oneself both in the home and in public.[7] Many national governments are passing similar home/castle laws: Israel, Germany, Ireland, Canada, Italy and Wales.[8]

Property Also strongly indicated in the writings of the U.S. Founding Fathers and those Europeans that influenced them is the concept that one has free access to the fruits of his labour or increase and having that property or fruit was an unalienable[9] right. This was crucial after living in a system of aristocracy, inheritance and serfdom where owning land was next to impossible for the common man; yet it went further than just land a man farmed, and included anything a person produced. “By looking at the system as it operated in Europe, revolutionaries affirmed that the few rich and the many poor were created when aristocrats used their monopoly over political power to steal the fruits of labor from producers.”[10] The aristocratic policies that created it were “high taxes, manipulation of currency, establishment of a bureaucracy, legislative creation of monopolies, and aristocratic inheritance laws.”[11] Perhaps most important of all a man’s land was un-a-lien-able: not able to be used as a lien or not able to be taken away.[12]

Liberty Liberty is freedom from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority--usually a government-- on one's way of life, behavior, religious or political views. It also encompasses self-determination, to be free to act as one pleases (with the implication it does not interfere with anothers liberty.)[13]

Life Life for people seems so self-evident that it is hardly worth mentioning. It is THE debate of the 21st century when it comes to unborn children; however, when does “life” for them begin? It is beyond the scope of this paper, but most agree the third trimester after twenty-one weeks is definitely life. Abortions of convenience at this stage would seem to violate the right of the child to life.

Aesthetics

It has long been held, as Louis Sullivan said in 1896, that “Form follows Function.” Yet more recently, researchers, such as Tractinsky[15] and Kurosu and Kashimura,[16] have shown that our perception of how beautiful or aesthetically pleasing something is adds to our perception that it works well. It might be better said that “Function follows Beauty.” Moreover, aesthetically pleasing neighborhoods correlate to less crime, lower mortality rates and lower stress levels in multiple studies.[17] Far from being a superfluous element, beauty is basic to human well-being; nevertheless, each culture will have its own definition of what denotes beauty in its architecture and layout.

Social Awareness

Studies show that communities over 250-350 people are not as close knit as ones that stay in that size range.[18] Larger than that and people cannot connect and adversarial cliques start to form.[19] Malcolm Gladwell postulates that we can only truly connect with 150 people on any kind of an intimate basis; yet we can easily recognize 300 people and feel some sort of a kinship with them, what is termed a weak tie.[20] [21]

Of note too are the studies that point out that too much ethnic and value diversity lead to a weakening of community ties. It is important that our villages are homogenous enough to have similar values; yet, the towns are diverse enough to include many types of people.[22]

Bernard Lietaer and Stephen Belgin, authors of New Money for a New World, have also determined that in order for complementary or community currencies to work most effectively, a population of five thousand (5,000) is ideal.[23] Complementary currencies (female energy) are in addition to national currencies (male energy)and can be thought of as social currency. Lietaer and Belgin assert that our most pressing social concerns i.e. poverty, education, food are treatable within one generation and the treatment begins with a change in our monetary system--a balancing of our yin and yang currencies.[24]

Summation

Keeping neighborhoods or villages to three hundred people and then grouping them together in towns will provide the mass needed for an effective economy, yet retain the size needed for optimal societal functioning. This model, respecting the earth we all share and based on the five principles of stewardship, natural law, freedom, aesthetics and social awareness, form the foundation and meet the basic physical, social, mental and economic needs and wants of people. So far this does not sound radically different than many current communities. As the saying goes, “God is in the details.”

[25]

An Overview of a Model Town

A town consists of five thousand people, and will be seventeen villages with approximately a hundred homes in each village, and an average of three people per home. The whole town is based on permaculture design principles. Graham Bell of Scotland defines it: “… Permaculture as first articulated is that it is possible to consciously design how we meet human needs, in a way which leaves the ecosystem at least as healthy as we found it and preferably more so.”[26]

All community properties will have edible landscaping and food forests, and all villages will have gardens. According to the 2013 UN Trade and Environment Report, “Hunger and malnutrition are mainly related to lack of purchasing power and/or inability of rural poor to be self-sufficient. Meeting the food security challenges is thus primarily about empowerment of the poor and their food sovereignty.”[27] Setting up basic village and town structures to ensure food sovereignty will be a major focus. For more developed countries having access to non-GMO foods, fresh organic food and local production will also create an important food sovereignty that is sorely missing.

The town center complex will consist of town meeting rooms, offices, library, middle and high schools, town park and recreation areas. Churches/Spiritual Gathering Centers could also be built there. Surrounding the town center would be the shops to support the town: dry cleaners, bakeries, restaurants, health practitioners, clothing stores, shoe shops, hair salons, spas, art galleries, food markets and whatever specialty the town is known for: furniture, tile, iron works, musical instruments, book publishing etc. The types of shops will vary from culture to culture.

Surrounding the town will be greenhouses, rectangular, dome or pyramid or other protected growing areas as the climate and culture dictate as well as farming ground, grazing and barns for large meat animals and meat preparation areas. Also light manufacturing zones will be set aside for welding shops, fabrication shops, vehicle repair, and heavier manufacturing zones for large items such as farm machinery, vehicles, energy devices, or other large commercial enterprises. Large green belts will surround the commercial zones providing wood for the town and a visual break from the commercial activities. Less industrialized cultures may have solar oven manufacturing facilities and/or solar panel manufacturing as their local trade or native boats manufacture (whatever is culturally relevant and needed).

Service Hours

Every adult eighteen years of age and over serves the town sixteen hours a week and is paid in Community Dollars. The type of activity to fulfill that service is up to them, and is committed to in a written contract. The service equates with current societies jobs or businesses. College students will be interns or apprentices in their chosen field for most of their hours. All town service is paid at an equal rate. An additional four hours a week would be in service to the village: gardening, preparing community meals, maintenance of village buildings, working in or on various Village Projects, caring for children, the elderly, handicapped or ill, teaching or volunteering in the schools. Both in the town and in the village service hours, villagers commit to certain jobs and schedule them in advance. Less desirable jobs will be rotated so that no one person is doing them all the time. Some jobs may require long-term commitments, certain skill sets or to be done on certain days, others will be flexible, seasonal, and open to most anyone.

Every adult contributes--family members or friends donate hours for those unable to contribute because of extreme ill health or disability. People can also bank hours when they are younger for when they are less able to contribute. Most, however, can find some way to contribute to society ie reading to children, playing board games, storytelling, simple light tasks such as dusting or sweeping, emptying waste baskets etc. Most people are happier when they are contributing to those around them and interacting with others and will choose to continue to contribute as long as possible.Free Time

Villagers would then spend their free time gardening at their property, studying, caring for family, meditating, exercising, recreating, socializing and any special project they desire (like art, writing, crafts, bee keeping, woodworking, athletics, culinary arts and so forth).

Villagers could work additional hours at their service job or offer their free-time-projects or services For Sale for additional personal funds. Items and services are fully payable in Community Dollars or national currency or some split of the two currencies.

Minors Service Hours

Minors are encouraged to serve by cleaning the school, tutoring other students, doing service projects for their neighbors such as raking leaves, babysitting and so forth. Older students could work in businesses as interns or apprentices and gain valuable experience in their chosen field or if undecided could work at restaurants, dry cleaners and so forth to earn desired funds.

Minors are paid in School Dollars at 1/4 the adult rate for Community Dollars for ages 6-11 (one-two hours a day maximum), 1/2 the adult rate for ages 12-15 (two to three hours a day maximum) and ¾ the full adult rate for ages 16 and 17 (four to five hours a day maximum).

Paying for Higher Education

While this wouldn’t be required, students would have the opportunity to save their School Dollars to transfer to their college fund and could conceivably have their college paid for by the time they graduate from high school. Minors opting to save towards college would get some sort of a bonus for every $1,000 saved. College hours would be no more than 4x the hourly rate of Community Dollars that is paid to each adult citizen. If the hourly rate is $20 an hour than 1 college credit costs $80 or less. Universities may require national currency, but many community and trade colleges will only ask for School Dollars.

Scholarships

Towns may opt to have scholarships with stipulations for years of service to the town for their students and pay for medical school and other desirable fields at universities that require national currency. Since all professions will be paid the same (at least the first sixteen hours a week would be or whatever the scholarship stipulates), yet some universities will cost considerably more; this will make it possible for towns to have the services that are important to them.

Town Covenant

To become a citizen of the town, adults will need to first be an accepted member of a village. Each village will have a document similar to a Home Owner Association, Covenants Conditions & Restrictions (CC&R’s), that any new occupant or upcoming member of the village will study, be tested on and upon passing, sign and agree to abide by. [28]

The village document will determine what type of a village it will be and they will be free to encourage or discourage any behavior to create the atmosphere they desire to live in as long as it does not contradict the town documents or the five principles.

Villages can be more restrictive than the town charter, but cannot be more liberal. For instance if it is illegal to have homes larger than 5,000 sq ft in the town, villages within that town cannot legally allow 7,500 sq ft homes, but could limit home size to 3,000 sq ft.

A town charter/covenant will be created and each citizen of the town will sign their acceptance of that charter and covenant to abide by it. Any new citizen of a town will have to study, be tested on, and sign the charter covenant. Usually they will be studying both the village and town documents within a close time frame.

Inheritance

Adult town citizens over twenty-five years of age will be deeded a plot of land and basic materials for a small home of say five hundred sq ft. Two adults could combine their inheritance for a thousand sq ft home. Villagers are free to add on to their home at their own expense.

Village Community Center

The hub of the village will be the village community center. There will be community meeting rooms, school rooms, specialized rooms (artist studios, music rooms, craft rooms, community kitchen and dining areas, spa, meditation rooms, library, media) as each community desires. In the middle of a village green there will be recreational facilities as the village desires such as swimming pools, work out rooms, soccer/baseball fields, tennis/basketball courts and so forth. That community center could also contain small businesses serving the needs of the village. Every village could have its own elementary charter-type school or several villages could opt to have one together.

Resource Sharing

Part of sustainability is sharing resources. It takes less resources to grow a very large garden and greenhouse as a group rather than every family having its own tiller, greenhouse, hoses, and so forth. The savings in time spent in the garden and preparing all the food after harvest is also huge. As a group, people can save time and resources.

It makes better sense to share even fun resources like boats, trailers, 4-wheelers, fishing gear and sporting equipment. If a community had a community center that housed tools, recreation equipment, canning equipment, sewing machines, library books, and other media everyone would have access to so much more and live a higher quality of life. More things to enjoy and a smaller footprint are two great reasons to share resources. This of course, would look different for each culture and village. Anglo-saxon societies are such large consumers that anything done to reduce over materialism is a win for the community and the planet.

The resource center, housed near The Community Center would be manned and things checked out. People, giving their community hours, would spend time maintaining the equipment.

Also on the property will be a Bone Yard area to store resources many would call junk. Catalogued, organized and covered it could prove to be a very useful recycling center.

Insurance

The best health insurance is to learn and live the natural laws of health. Although seventy percent of disease is preventable and health conscious people dramatically lower the chance of a serious disease, there is still a need to cover the unforeseen, uncontrollable health challenges that may arise. Health insurance is a group of people coming together to share risk and to assure proper coverage. We propose a dual approach.

Towns could be self-insured for small medical issues with each citizen paying a certain amount based on four criteria: health, age, occupation/hobbies and number of dependents. Even the most risky citizen score would still be affordable. Alternative local healers and methodologies would be covered by this insurance. Citizens would be encouraged to attend classes, workshops and so forth to earn additional points (i.e. Community Dollars etc) towards their insurance costs. The thrust of the health program will be prevention rather than just treating disease that is too far gone to really help effectively.[29]

There are insurance companies that have health plans with high deductibles for the whole group that allow a group to self insure for the smaller health issues, but will step in if there is someone with a catastrophic illness needing expensive treatment beyond what can be provided locally. When an insurance company receives a payment a portion goes to pay for fixed expenses and a portion goes into a fund to pay claims. If there is money that is not used for claims a traditional insurance keeps the balance as profit. With a company that helps groups self insure if there is money left over in the claims fund it is returned to the group. This is an additional incentive to stay healthy and keep costs low.

Food

Food sovereignty is a major component of village and town life. The goal is to have 90% of food grown within 25-100 miles and 70% grown within the town/village network. Food forests, greenhouses, edible landscaping, large community gardens as well as personal gardens can easily achieve that goal for fresh vegetables, fruits, sweeteners, nuts, legumes, grains, meat and dairy products. Heavily processed foods will no longer be the majority purchase and fresh food the minority. Local businesses like bread shops, cheese makers and so forth will be much more integral to these types of communities than is now found.[30]

Governance

The basic governing unit of citizens lives will be the village, then the town then the county and then the state with the national government last. Recognizing this is an ideal and not feasible yet on the national, state and county levels, we will concentrate on the town and village levels.

As previously mentioned, all citizens will covenant to obey the specific laws and terms of their village and town. Only citizens receive land and home inheritances and only citizens vote. No town or village document can contradict any of the five principles.

One of the most different consequences of that is that no mortgage or lien of any kind including property tax can be applied against any inheritance or improvement on that inheritance. Inheritances may be sold for the amount of extra improvements in the home or on the land; however, the new owner must be accepted as a member of that village before the sale is considered final.

For an informed citizenry to work at the level required, training in conflict resolution[31], logic and principles will be part of the education process. Too much of our political mindset now is based on marketing and emotion with little study of the issues and candidates. We should never forget that Thomas Jefferson warned: “experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes ... whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidental condition or circumstance.”[32]

For the governance group to be truly effective, enough people need to be aware of socially sensitive cues (body language) and act upon those cues. Another predictor: “Conversational turn-taking also made a big difference; groups dominated by a few talkers were less effective than those in which members took more equal turns.”[34]

Villages

Fees can be levied by the village to each of its members (similar to an HOA fee), but cannot be shown as a lien against the property. It would be extremely difficult to leave one village and go to another and be accepted with outstanding village fees. It is up to each village to determine if the fees are all national currency, community dollars, or some combination thereof.

A suggested governing structure for the village would consist of a Village Chief, a Social Counselor and an Economic Counselor. They would be elected from amongst the citizens of the village and serve for five and three year terms respectively. If additional hours are needed on top of the four all commit to in the village as service hours per week, they will be paid the standard hourly rate and it MAY count towards the town’s service hours. As their names imply the social counselor would concentrate on social/people issues and the economic counselor on financial concerns, businesses and so forth. The three leaders would meet weekly and determine the needs of their village and bring it to citizens meetings as needed. Citizen meetings will occur quarterly at a minimum and will vote on any major issues.

All villages (and towns) will vote and set up special committees of three-five people to oversee things like education, water, the commons, sanitation, buildings, zoning, safety, health and others as each community sees fit. Each community will decide what is best handled by the villages and which the town is best to handle.They will be paid the same Community Dollars at the same rate and will work the same sixteen hours a week for the town and four hours for the village. If they don’t need to work that many hours a week to fulfill their job, they will only be paid whatever the voters determine is fair ie two hours a week.

These are only basic suggestions and local communities may have traditional structures that would easily be modified to take care of the basic needs of a village. All governance would include voting by all citizens.

Towns

Towns governance will be set up basically the same way as the villages. There will be a committee of Chiefs from each village to address the needs of the whole. This meeting could be held monthly or bi-monthly depending on the community complexity. The Chiefs will vote on any changes and their vote will reflect the majority will of their village.[35] The flow will be an idea is presented for change, each chief speaks his mind about it and then returns to his village and presents it to the citizens. The citizens vote and the chief then represents their wishes at the town meeting. Each citizen must then sign an agreement to abide by the new ruling. This keeps everything simple, transparent, and creates buy-in. Whenever a change is presented it is first held up against the five principles to see if it is in alignment and will better meet the needs of the people. Rather than just use a simple majority rule, 80% consensus would be necessary before a chief could vote. Less than 80% and there won’t be enough community buy-in. As communities mature and this process is understood some communities may require a 90% consensus.

CONCLUSION

Setting up villages and towns based on the principles of stewardship, where not only every strata of society is considered but mother earth, is a huge step forward in solving many societal ills. Also acknowledging the natural laws surrounding Life, Liberty, Property and Self Defense and granting basic freedoms such as bodily autonomy, access to the very basic resources to support life, equality before the law, and economic freedom will uplift many who are languishing in poverty, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. People thrive when their surroundings are beautiful, there is plenty of green space and ample opportunity to interact with and know their neighbors and have time for their families and interests.

We can no longer afford to base our towns on what creates money; we need to build systems that create social capital, that are sustainable and that create health at all levels. Complementary currencies, shared resources, majority political will, finding a place for everyone to contribute and share, good education and time to reflect are all tools we know will dramatically empower people. We need to protect those at the lowest rungs of the ladder from falling off into the abyss and simultaneously not shackle those at the highest rungs. Acknowledging where true happiness lies, fulfilling our true needs, and sharing our gifts with the world, we will take back our liberties one little village at a time. Joy is our destiny.

[1] An Iroquois Perspective. Pp. 173, 174 in American Indian Environments:Ecological Issues in Native American History. Vecsey C, Venables RW (Editors). Syracuse University Press, New York

[2] Tom McDonough, The Situationists and the City: A Reader

[3] http://ohioline.osu.edu/cd-fact/l703.html (Retrieved July 2015) They list nine characteristics of a “good Community.”

[28] See Joel Skousen, Citizen Compact for his views on what would constitute a citizen, a resident, and a non-resident and what their associated rights and responsibilities would be. http://www.joelskousen.com/Philosophy/compact.html

[29] Michael C. Brook cd lecture Making the Shift (2007) in possession of author. See www.newdimensionsinhealth.com

Liberty is above government purview; even so freedom is what governments grant to its citizens. Societies flourish when EVERYONE’S rights/freedoms are protected. The basic rights of having a say what is done to and with our own bodies, equal access to basic resources, and to be treated equally before the law are non-negotiable. And in today’s interconnected world we recognize the importance of economic freedom. “Economic freedom—free markets at home and free trade in the world—is essential to human liberty. Without it, people are unable to improve the conditions under which they and their posterity will live. Worse, they are vulnerable to oppression, especially by the state. We only need recall the human toll of slavery and Soviet Communism to understand what Friedrich Hayek meant when he noted that ‘to be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be always controlled,’ and that if all economic decisions require the approval of government, then ‘we should really be controlled in everything’."[14] Other freedoms will be granted, but these seem to be the most basic necessary to success of this model anywhere in the world.

Native American chiefs are taught “to make sure and to make every decision that [they] make relate to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come. . . ." “[1] And we would add “and every living person in every nation.” Consider also that the animals and water and land are referred to as “our brothers and sisters” in Native American culture. We have violated our sacred trust. The cities and towns of today are largely void of nature, and are places of isolation and desperation with no time for anything meaningful for today’s citizens and the prospects even dimmer for future generations. “The crisis of urbanism is all the more concretely a social and political one, even though today no force born of traditional politics is any longer capable of dealing with it.”[2] Our world is in need of a new model beyond politics that takes into account what people need, what the earth needs and what business needs.That model needs to be built upon proven principles that work.

For a village to work at optimal levels it cannot be too diverse in ethnicity or values. There is a sweet spot somewhere between 9-20% for the village to feel cohesive enough for all inhabitants to participate at a high level. More than that and people stop voting in as high of numbers and start to dissociate emotionally.[33] IF the population is highly diverse ethnically, but share strong common values that would work OR if the population is ethnically similar it can withstand values that differ twenty percent (or less) of the time. We all would like to believe we are more open to unlimited diversity, but apparently we are hardwired to seek similarities more than differences. “Birds of a feather flock together.”